Health vs. Endurance/Health

Recommended Posts

Haven't read the whole thread yet, but just throwing my two cents here.

Compare to the old Health/Endurance system, the new system seems to make Constitution a even worse attribute now because u just need to put enough into it to guarantee you will not be killed before the heal spells can heal your endurance up.

Even those Monk/Barbarian doesn't need high Constitution now because your healer can keep them alive without worry about health.

1

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Under the current system and the old system, you just hit rest and move on.

I think unlimited resting is the underlying cause of a lot of problems, but ​if they don't provide it, too many will complain. POE1's attempted compromise was a soft cap, but players complained about hiking back to an inn after every fight even though there was no need to do that, since resting supplies were found in abundance. You couldn't even carry all the camp supplies you found, so in practice it was unlimited even if you didn't keep hiking back to inns.

​

I would rather see a hard rest cap, plus a new-game checkbox to allow rest-spam for the players who want that. It's not the unlimited nature itself which is the problem (you can always just ... not rest), it's the evisceration of other gameplay mechanics and encounter designs that it compels. You can avoid resting, but you can't avoid the destruction of other aspects of the game that result.

​

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

​Under the current system and the old system, you just hit rest and move on.

I think unlimited resting is the underlying cause of a lot of problems, but ​if they don't provide it, too many will complain. POE1's attempted compromise was a soft cap, but players complained about hiking back to an inn after every fight even though there was no need to do that, since resting supplies were found in abundance. You couldn't even carry all the camp supplies you found, so in practice it was unlimited even if you didn't keep hiking back to inns.

​

I would rather see a hard rest cap, plus a new-game checkbox to allow rest-spam for the players who want that. It's not the unlimited nature itself which is the problem (you can always just ... not rest), it's the evisceration of other gameplay mechanics and encounter designs that it compels. You can avoid resting, but you can't avoid the destruction of other aspects of the game that result.

​

I view resting as a symptom of the problem, as opposed to the cause. The cause, in my opinion, is how to handle party management (or lack thereof) and punishment. Currently, punishment is capped, because the most punishment any party member can receive (with some exception) is just one wound at a time. Said punishment can be reset by merely resting, which is borderline infinite. This is true under both the old and new system in my opinion.

Even if you cap the number of rests, I believe you will run into the same issue, although to a lesser extent. Specifically, no matter how dumb or thoughtless the mistake, the punishment for any mistake is just 1 wound per character at a time. As a result, you still can mismanage your party and fall back on resting to reset the situation.

I would prefer a system where the punishment is not capped. For example, if you let your character stand in a fire for the entire fight, then I believe your character should receive multiple wounds and die (if it reaches the wound limit). Similarly, if you let the Titan Watcher throw the same character multiple times, without any thought to interrupts or positioning vulnerable characters, then I think your character should get multiple wounds and die. This type of system adds an extra layer to party management in my mind, and rewards players that pay attention.

Edited November 26, 2017 by Nixl

2

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Even if you cap the number of rests, I believe you will run into the same issue, although to a lesser extent. Specifically, no matter how dumb or thoughtless the mistake, the punishment for any mistake is just 1 wound per character at a time. As a result, you still can mismanage your party and fall back on resting to reset the situation.

I would prefer a system where the punishment is not capped. For example, if you let your character stand in a fire for the entire fight, then I believe your character should receive multiple wounds and die (if it reaches the wound limit). ... This type of system adds an extra layer to party management in my mind, and rewards players that pay attention.

Pretty much agreed. I agree the wound system doesn't cut it as (in your terms) punishment for mismanagement. Also agreed there should be a cost, and that today (and kind of, in POE1 as well) there isn't. I'd be OK with your multiple wounds idea where you accrue them by taking damage, or just the simple and obvious thing: non-auto-regenerating health (or a split pool) plus hard-limited resting and resources, so you are pressured into playing well over time.

And yeah... totally with you about that extra dimension to adventuring, which to me is an essential component of RPGs. The best older 80's era RPGs had it bigtime. Sadly, that dynamic of managing an adventure, not just a single fight at a time, is all but extinct. I suspect the only faint hope is a game option (or a community mod?), so the majority can have their preference. But even that entails extra balancing and testing work.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

My preference still lies with the endurance/health system from POE1 as well and I can't see the current one in the Beta doing things better in any way. If anything it does things worse than POE1 with the often mentioned

I also wouldn't know (yet) how to bring back b. without completely replacing the current one with the endurance/health system from POE1, which of course would be the most preferable solution, but for a. it may be merely a matter of very minor GUI redesign with a small change to how one of the primary attributes affects the max count of injuries.

As already suggested by @eisenschwein and others it would only make sense to let Constitution control how many injuries a character can receive before dying.

This way the player character's chosen class (and accordingly distributed attribute points) as well as the NPCs/companions' classes would also be properly reflected in their different max injury limits. There would be not only distinction in how the different classes or builds participate in combat (melee, ranged, magic) there would also be distinction in how much they can take and absorb before reaching the limit and dying the final death.

Should Maneha, a Barbarian (CON 19 in my last playthrough of POE1), not be able to soak up considerably more damage or accumulate significantly more injuries than Aloth, a Wizard (still base CON 10 in my last playthrough of POE1)?

Two concepts for the corresponding redesign of the injury meter necessary to support the proposed revision:

2

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

My preference still lies with the endurance/health system from POE1 as well and I can't see the current one in the Beta doing things better in any way. If anything it does things worse than POE1 with the often mentioned

I also wouldn't know (yet) how to bring back b. without completely replacing the current one with the endurance/health system from POE1, which of course would be the most preferable solution, but for a. it may be merely a matter of very minor GUI redesign with a small change to how one of the primary attributes affects the max count of injuries.

As already suggested by @eisenschwein and others it would only make sense to let Constitution control how many injuries a character can receive before dying.

My suggestion:

Increase the max injury count by 1 every 2nd point in Constitution.

Starting from:

CON 1 -> max injury limit: 1

CON 3 -> max injury limit: 2 (CON 3 was the lowest you could go in POE1, I believe it's still the same in the Beta character creation?)

CON 5 -> max injury limit: 3

...

Con 11 -> max injury limit: 6

...

CON 19 -> max injury limit: 10

...

This way the player character's chosen class (and accordingly distributed attribute points) as well as the NPCs/companions' classes would also be properly reflected in their different max injury limits. There would be not only distinction in how the different classes or builds participate in combat (melee, ranged, magic) there would also be distinction in how much they can take and absorb before reaching the limit and dying the final death.

Should Maneha, a Barbarian (CON 19 in my last playthrough of POE1), not be able to soak up considerably more damage or accumulate significantly more injuries than Aloth, a Wizard (still base CON 10 in my last playthrough of POE1)?

Two concepts for the corresponding redesign of the injury meter necessary to support the proposed revision:

Yep, had something in mind along those lines.

Simple (to implement) yet making quite a difference in regards to what you'd expect from a character with high constitution vs. a character with low constitution in terms of perseverance or pain tolerance, if you will. It does indeed make little sense that an archetypical barbarian and an archetypical wizard should falter or fall from sustaining the exact same, rather low amount of wounds or injuries, unless they're built specifically around and with that in mind.

UI-wise definitely an improvement over the "traffic light" too.

Nice touch with the skull as well.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

My preference still lies with the endurance/health system from POE1 as well and I can't see the current one in the Beta doing things better in any way. If anything it does things worse than POE1 with the often mentioned

I also wouldn't know (yet) how to bring back b. without completely replacing the current one with the endurance/health system from POE1, which of course would be the most preferable solution, but for a. it may be merely a matter of very minor GUI redesign with a small change to how one of the primary attributes affects the max count of injuries.

As already suggested by @eisenschwein and others it would only make sense to let Constitution control how many injuries a character can receive before dying.

My suggestion:

Increase the max injury count by 1 every 2nd point in Constitution.

Starting from:

CON 1 -> max injury limit: 1

CON 3 -> max injury limit: 2 (CON 3 was the lowest you could go in POE1, I believe it's still the same in the Beta character creation?)

CON 5 -> max injury limit: 3

...

Con 11 -> max injury limit: 6

...

CON 19 -> max injury limit: 10

...

This way the player character's chosen class (and accordingly distributed attribute points) as well as the NPCs/companions' classes would also be properly reflected in their different max injury limits. There would be not only distinction in how the different classes or builds participate in combat (melee, ranged, magic) there would also be distinction in how much they can take and absorb before reaching the limit and dying the final death.

Should Maneha, a Barbarian (CON 19 in my last playthrough of POE1), not be able to soak up considerably more damage or accumulate significantly more injuries than Aloth, a Wizard (still base CON 10 in my last playthrough of POE1)?

Two concepts for the corresponding redesign of the injury meter necessary to support the proposed revision:

This is a great idea. Only problem is that now you want to make sure your con is an odd number; no upside for even numbered con values.

You could also index this to the current "lose a percentage of health with each knockout" such that (for example) a hero with ten con would lose 20% of their health on a knockout, while a char with 20 con would only lose 10%.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Can we just simply add +/-received heal effect to Con?, currently high the only difference of high Con cha and low Con cha is the ability to take spike damages, a low Con can be as tank as high Con cha if the heal is enough. For example with a Lifegiver casting regeneration spell.

But if we make high Con cha get more bonus from healing ability/spell, and low con get less, then it will be more important.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

The max health loss from injuries will be removed from a lot of injuries unless its the point of that injury or a really bad injury

Also lowering max health loss from 25% to 15%

They said they want player to feel like they can press on and not really rest spam and that resting should take food bonus loss over time more into account

With those changes to injury system that not every injury will have a fixed 25% penalty, it will act more like an HP bar; rather an invisible one that dictates available endurance, now it just needs to be visible and deplete with damage again with maybe reducing injury HP penalties even further. Since its dictating available endurance, HP loss should be capped at 50%, if a character's below 50% HP, it should receive an enormous debuff and next KO should perma-kill him regardless of injury count.

I didn't mind reduction on party size(for reasons) but with both HP/endu split gone and Might's getting chopped in half really takes away from PoE's uniqueness in its systems, maybe not that much effectively but in feels Just my 2 cents.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

The max health loss from injuries will be removed from a lot of injuries unless its the point of that injury or a really bad injury

Also lowering max health loss from 25% to 15%

They said they want player to feel like they can press on and not really rest spam and that resting should take food bonus loss over time more into account

​IMO, that is a slight improvement on the current scheme, but still not as good as the POE1 system was, which itself wasn't perfect, but was okay. There needs to be a cost to taking combat damage even if you don't get knocked out.

​

​Also, I think if they want the player to not rest spam, the way to do that is... limit resting. I don't think the loss of some food bonuses will deliver much meaningful pressure. Maybe make lower difficulties rest-spammable, and higher ones rest-limited (not just "hike back to an inn" pseudo-limited, but a real limitation which may put the player's back to the wall sometimes).

​

1

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

​Also, I think if they want the player to not rest spam, the way to do that is... limit resting. I don't think the loss of some food bonuses will deliver much meaningful pressure. Maybe make lower difficulties rest-spammable, and higher ones rest-limited (not just "hike back to an inn" pseudo-limited, but a real limitation which may put the player's back to the wall sometimes).

​

But... why? The system clearly isn’t build for that. There is no resource management. Spells and abilities are per encounter. The only reason to rest are injuries (which you get on screwup, be it falling in battle or running into traps) and restore empower points. Resource management beyond combat level just isn’t really a thing in Deadfire.

1

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

But... why? The system clearly isn’t build for that. There is no resource management. Spells and abilities are per encounter. [...] Resource management beyond combat level just isn’t really a thing in Deadfire.

Agreed, it (mostly) isn't... which I think is a mistake and irredeemably damages one of the most important aspects of the RPG experience.

I understand the whole gaming world has gone this direction, so there's little choice now if they want a commercially viable game. However, I hope for a new-game option, akin to the permadeath checkbox in POE1, to restore some resource based gameplay. (I don't think food bonuses suffice for this).

Edited December 4, 2017 by demeisen

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

But... why? The system clearly isn’t build for that. There is no resource management. Spells and abilities are per encounter. [...] Resource management beyond combat level just isn’t really a thing in Deadfire.

Agreed, it (mostly) isn't... which I think is a mistake and irredeemably damages one of the most important aspects of the RPG experience.

I understand the whole gaming world has gone ADHD, so there's little choice now if they want a commercially viable game. However, I hope for a new-game option, akin to the permadeath checkbox in POE1, to restore some resource based gameplay. (I don't think food bonuses suffice for this).

I see. I really don't think "those-twitchy-kids-these-days" to be a reason for these changes. I would rather expect older fans of originals to not have patience to get potentially stuck in story driven game.

I am a big fan of strategy games, resource management, meaningful (often deadly) decision making and all that jazz. Those are selling points to me. But in the end, every game has to decide what it wants to be and where its (and players) main focus should be directed to. I will use the same argument I use whenever this subject of "meaningful" choices and resource management comes up: None of the Infinity Engine games or RPGs that followed really had any resource management in them. In all those D&D games you could rest wherever you wanted. It's not by a mistake. Those are primarly story driven games and getting stuck in a dungeon, having to reload old save, permanently loosing a handcrafted companion, or not being able to complete a quest goes againt what those games are valuing the most.

In some more mechanicly driven RPGs those tough decisions and possible real looses are welcome. In IE style RPGs they really don't belong. Even if they are somewhat present (perma death of characters in IE game or PoE, or per-rest abilty use, and limited camping) those are more of a flavour than meaty mechanical restrictions.

1

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Can we just simply add +/-received heal effect to Con?, currently high the only difference of high Con cha and low Con cha is the ability to take spike damages, a low Con can be as tank as high Con cha if the heal is enough. For example with a Lifegiver casting regeneration spell.

But if we make high Con cha get more bonus from healing ability/spell, and low con get less, then it will be more important.

One issue with this is that you don't want to "double up" with too many similar effects on the same stat, because then you get a feedback loop type effect going on, where stacking it creates exponential rather than linear effects. Of course maybe that doesn't matter too much given the limited benefit of Constitution regardless.

So far my biggest concern with this change is that it could end up making high level fighters permanently invincible. I can remember plenty of fights in PoE where the rest of the party wiped and Eder just kept going and going and going until he ran out of Health. If there's no finite resource he's exhausting, Constant Recovery becomes really really really strong.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

My preference still lies with the endurance/health system from POE1 as well and I can't see the current one in the Beta doing things better in any way. If anything it does things worse than POE1 with the often mentioned

I also wouldn't know (yet) how to bring back b. without completely replacing the current one with the endurance/health system from POE1, which of course would be the most preferable solution, but for a. it may be merely a matter of very minor GUI redesign with a small change to how one of the primary attributes affects the max count of injuries.

As already suggested by @eisenschwein and others it would only make sense to let Constitution control how many injuries a character can receive before dying.

My suggestion:

Increase the max injury count by 1 every 2nd point in Constitution.

Starting from:

CON 1 -> max injury limit: 1

CON 3 -> max injury limit: 2 (CON 3 was the lowest you could go in POE1, I believe it's still the same in the Beta character creation?)

CON 5 -> max injury limit: 3

...

Con 11 -> max injury limit: 6

...

CON 19 -> max injury limit: 10

...

This way the player character's chosen class (and accordingly distributed attribute points) as well as the NPCs/companions' classes would also be properly reflected in their different max injury limits. There would be not only distinction in how the different classes or builds participate in combat (melee, ranged, magic) there would also be distinction in how much they can take and absorb before reaching the limit and dying the final death.

Should Maneha, a Barbarian (CON 19 in my last playthrough of POE1), not be able to soak up considerably more damage or accumulate significantly more injuries than Aloth, a Wizard (still base CON 10 in my last playthrough of POE1)?

Two concepts for the corresponding redesign of the injury meter necessary to support the proposed revision:

This is a great idea. Only problem is that now you want to make sure your con is an odd number; no upside for even numbered con values.

You could also index this to the current "lose a percentage of health with each knockout" such that (for example) a hero with ten con would lose 20% of their health on a knockout, while a char with 20 con would only lose 10%.

Not necessarily.

As long as Maneha the barbarian could stack up more injuries than Aloth the wizard I couldn't care less if one more point in constitution would raise the injury limit by 1, or to stick with the above example, raise the injury limit from 5 to 6 (going up from CON 10 to CON 11). 5 injuries vs. 10 injuries (at CON 19) is still more in line with the roleplaying aspect (a standard wizard not being able to endure as much injuries as a standard barbarian) than the current universal limit of only 4 meager injuries for all characters and builds, no matter the class nor individual constitution.

If health/endurance isn't coming back (and if that's the case someone hopefully is modding it back in) Obsidian should at least remove the hard cap on injuries (e.g. by letting constitution determine the limit on injuries) for proper role-playing.

Edited December 14, 2017 by Folie a deux

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Rolled a melee Cipher (PotD) who uses staffs to melee attack but safely (safer?) from range. He doesn't get KO'd but the attrition of health loss is forcing me to rest pretty frequently. Much different from my typical Juggernaut Monk who I rolled again and he has the health to fight for multiple maps without appreciable health loss forcing frequent resting.

I guess my point is that the old system really punished non-traditional melee who had substantially smaller health pools than super tanky melee like high con Monks. Based on this fresh look at PoE I'm liking the new health only system with four injuries a lot more.

4

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Rolled a melee Cipher (PotD) who uses staffs to melee attack but safely (safer?) from range. He doesn't get KO'd but the attrition of health loss is forcing me to rest pretty frequently. Much different from my typical Juggernaut Monk who I rolled again and he has the health to fight for multiple maps without appreciable health loss forcing frequent resting.

I guess my point is that the old system really punished non-traditional melee who had substantially smaller health pools than super tanky melee like high con Monks. Based on this fresh look at PoE I'm liking the new health only system with four injuries a lot more.

But in POE 1 every class has different amount of health/Con rate even with same Con right? That’s not a fair comparison. You should compare cipher with lower Con with cipher with higher Con.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Rolled a melee Cipher (PotD) who uses staffs to melee attack but safely (safer?) from range. He doesn't get KO'd but the attrition of health loss is forcing me to rest pretty frequently. Much different from my typical Juggernaut Monk who I rolled again and he has the health to fight for multiple maps without appreciable health loss forcing frequent resting.

I guess my point is that the old system really punished non-traditional melee who had substantially smaller health pools than super tanky melee like high con Monks. Based on this fresh look at PoE I'm liking the new health only system with four injuries a lot more.

This was really interesting, thanks. That's exactly why I'd never completed a melee cipher run in PoE -- I could never figure out a way to build them where they weren't crazy squishy.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Rolled a melee Cipher (PotD) who uses staffs to melee attack but safely (safer?) from range. He doesn't get KO'd but the attrition of health loss is forcing me to rest pretty frequently. Much different from my typical Juggernaut Monk who I rolled again and he has the health to fight for multiple maps without appreciable health loss forcing frequent resting.

I guess my point is that the old system really punished non-traditional melee who had substantially smaller health pools than super tanky melee like high con Monks. Based on this fresh look at PoE I'm liking the new health only system with four injuries a lot more.

This was really interesting, thanks. That's exactly why I'd never completed a melee cipher run in PoE -- I could never figure out a way to build them where they weren't crazy squishy.

I've done plenty of melee casters: quarterstaffs and pikes let you have reach, which means with how strong engagement generally is in PoE, I can stand behind a good tank and whack safely away for modest damage. Works really well with a cipher because 2h weapons plus clothes/naked = lots of focus generation. (Engagement in PoE is strong versus Tyranny and even Deadfire because in PoE engagement completely stopped most enemies, whereas in Tyranny enemies feel free to disengage all the time, and in Deadfire enemies are still more willing to disengage vs PoE if not Tyranny-level and more importantly it seems like you can actually move around without triggering an automatic disengagement attack so long as you stay within range.)

Anyway this is to say that having a separate health system was an absolutely necessary balancing component to these builds. They rarely ever got into much danger despite how powerful they could be (e.g. wizard with Citzal's Spirit Lance and Deleterious Alacrity of Motion), but their low health multipliers meant that they were still rest-constrained over several fights from incidental damage and the like; they were still glass cannons.

I agree with much of the sentiment in this thread that the health/endurance split in PoE1 helped create a more strategic/resource-balancing element to the game and is an element I sorely miss in PoE2. Plus, when I was doing my The Ultimate achievement run, the health aspect was the only way I actually managed to win some fights against enemies with natural endurance regeneration . But I also understand that health/endurance was an extremely confusing gameplay element - I remember the first time I loaded up the PoE backer beta and being utterly confused (UI changes later on significantly helped that out).

I guess I would be happier if there were more ways for characters to accumulate injuries, to sort of emulate the steady drip on your time/resources that health loss represented in PoE. Maybe on Path of the Damned simply getting to low health (near death) would also trigger an injury (sort of like Tyranny), and/or maybe in general if you got critically hit or took enough damage to exceed some % of your max health you automatically got an injury (this would have the side effect that squishy low-health characters would still need to be careful over multiple fights from incidental damage). Maybe some extremely powerful abilities/spells can add an injury as a component.